


The Late Hours

by 3BeesAndCoffee3



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Adrenaline, Angst, Blood and Gore, Broken Bones, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Corpses, Crying, Daniel Cain Sucks at Compressions, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Reagent, Shock, This Is Morbid Af Sorry, Vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 06:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19901200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3BeesAndCoffee3/pseuds/3BeesAndCoffee3
Summary: Daniel Cain finds his partner on the floor, bloody and unconscious.It’s okay, he’s a doctor. Right?





	The Late Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This is incredibly morbid, I’m sorry lmao. Please heed the tags!

“No, no, come on,” Dan gasps, shaking fingers pressing the cloth down over the wound. The blood soaks through in almost no time at all, his hands tacky and stained a muddy red. “You can’t die, you can’t leave me with all of this- not after all of this, you can’t fucking die!” 

Dan doesn’t get a response, doesn’t get any form of one. Herbert’s face is stone white, paler than his usually already ashy skin. There’s no life in his face, his cheeks are drained of color, eyes mostly shut, crusted over just enough that it’s making it hard for his brain to maintain this fantasy, a fantasy that Herbert West is still savable. 

“Fuck, please,” Dan begs, his body’s shaking like a leaf, adrenaline coursing through him. It’s the same fuzzy, distant feeling of his body on autopilot, the same feeling that he would get at the hospital during an emergency surgery. He presses two blood stained fingers to Herberts neck, searching frantically for a pulse. 

There’s nothing under the pads of his fingers, nothing under the cool skin. There’s no pulse, not even a ghost of one. Dan checks again and again anyways, from his neck to his wrist but the truth is something he can’t deny, not with Herbert’s heavy body laying slack on the floor of the basement, limbs twisted all wrong, his lab coat stained with old blood, glasses askew, the lenses shattered. 

The lab isn’t doing any better than Herbert, the floor is stained with pools of blood. There are beakers shattered in a spray of glass, papers scattered over the floors, the counters, all of Herbert’s work, years and years of it, strewn everywhere. Destroyed. 

The deformed body of the thing Herbert had just brought to life, only to have it act just as manic and out of control as all of the others, just to have it attack him, striking Herbert’s head against the edge of the counter, is laying in a mess across the room. It’s body is still twitching.

He starts compressions, one after the other, frantic. A rib crunches under his hands, splintering. He continues anyways, harder and faster, his breathes coming out quick and panicked. A broken bone is better than-

Dan falls back, resting on his heels, his eyes wide as he stares down at the man in-front of him. A laugh bubbles up and out of his throat, manic and uncontrolled. He stares down at his hands, the blood is everywhere, under his nails, in every dip and stretch of his skin. He tries to wipe it off on his jeans, it smears in weak lines across the fabric but his hands remain filthy with it. “Get off,” Dan growls, rubbing his hands viciously against his pants until it _burns_ trying to get it off. 

It’s like a part of him, a filthy reminder of what he couldn’t save. 

Dan gives up eventually, chest heaving like he ran a mile. “You look awful, Herb,” Dan croaks around a choked off laugh. “You’re filthy.” He presses the cloth over Herbert’s head wound again, the blood bubbling up, slow and coagulated. 

“Christ,” he laughs softly. Herbert doesn’t respond. How typical. 

“You can’t leave all of this,” Dan says, running a hand through his hair. “What am I supposed to do with it?” He gestures at the lab, once neat and orderly. 

Herbert had made massive strides lately, progress blissfully evident in almost every new test subject. 3/5 subjects came back less violent, more something along the lines of truly human. How was he supposed to improve that? He wasn’t a scientist, not like Herbert. This wasn’t something he could do alone, not something he wanted to do alone. 

“You’re gonna leave this all unfinished?” Dan asks, voice cracking. “Years and years of work, for what?”

The room is heavy with silence. 

“What a fucking waste!” Dan shouts, kicking a foot out at Herberts unmoving body. It hardly moves on impact. 

Daniel won’t let Herbert abandon the work, the years of notes and attempts at playing god. Dan can’t handle that truth on his own, can’t handle that gruesome facts that what they’ve spent so long working towards is entirely unholy. He can’t do it alone. 

Alone, because Herbert West is dead. 

“I hate you,” Dan croaks, falling back on his feet until his back finds the shelf behind him. 

Instead of banter, there’s silence. Herbert has no witty comebacks. Herbert’s mouth is crusted over with blood, now. A makeshift gag, of sorts. The only time Doctor West hasn’t had a comeback, finally quiet, and all Dan wants is to hear his nagging voice. 

“I said I hate you,” Dan repeats, sterner, like he might somehow get a response. He knows deep down in his twisting stomach that he won’t get any form of a response. He won’t ever hear Herberts voice again. 

Time passes, a blur of minutes and hours. Dan staring at the lifeless, stiffening body at his feet. He watches the blood dry. 

Eventually, he finds himself in the bathroom, standing under the spray of hot water from the shower. The water is running pink, clumps of dirt and blood clogging the drain just enough that the murky water pools around his feet. He watches it with morbid fascination. The time between being hunched over his partners body and stumbling upstairs to undress is a blur. His brain doesn’t supply him with anything, it’s as if nothing happened at all. A fever dream. 

Dan wishes it was. 

He’s in shock, he knows that. The water running over his back does nothing to help the frantic tremble in his body of the way his mind is still racing. The adrenaline is starting to wear thin, though. His body is no longer working on autopilot so simply. He struggles to swipe a wet hand across his forehead, hair sticking there from sweat. 

He sinks down onto his knees, the water rushing over his body, streams running down his face. The tile beneath him is surprisingly cold in comparison to the warm water and he shivers. The room is spinning, tilting this way and that. 

What will he do now?

Dan lurches forward, grasping the edge of the tub with one hand, the other clawing at his knee as he retches. He empties his stomach in a fit of tears and coughing, choking until there’s nothing left. He washes his mouth clean with the now lukewarm water from the shower and staggers to his feet. He doesn’t feel any better, even after. 

Getting dressed is much like the hour previous. It’s a blur, and he’s not sure how he manages to towel off, redress and climb into bed, but he thanks whatever twisted God there might be for that single grace. 

His head hits the pillow, heavy. His eyes are so tired it’s a chore to keep them open, but he doesn’t sleep. He stares at the bedroom door, closed as always, long into the night. He thinks about how Herbert would still be busy at work. Doctor West and his forever sleepless nights, toiling away. Instead of the usually obnoxious sound of West fumbling around downstairs, he hears nothing. 

The silence is so, so much worse. 

There’s a part of his brain, itching to be resurfaced. He knows what he’s done. What had been done in the hours between laying in the basement and dragging himself to bathe. He knows, and he can’t sleep because of it. It’s a twist of anxiety and horror. Excitement. 

He doesn’t startle when he hears an almost inhuman scream from the basement. He doesn’t startle in the slightest- he already knew what would come, after all- Instead, there’s peace that settles inside of him. 

Welcome back, then.


End file.
